Jen's top of the pots

Actress Jennifer Ellison was savouring her success today after being voted cream to the crop of celebrity contestants in the television show Hell's Kitchen.

For two weeks, the 21-year-old former soap star of Brookside withstood the heat of the kitchen run by top chef Gordon Ramsay and emerged triumphant, jumping up and down and squealing with delight as host Angus Deayton announced the winner last night.

She was the favourite to win, as Ramsay said of her: "I have never seen a girl of 21 be so obsessed with food."

Ellison was congratulated with a flurry of party poppers and streamers as she walked through the Hell's Kitchen restaurant.

As she sipped champagne with Deayton, she said: "I can't believe it, I didn't know how to boil an egg."

Ramsay, who ruled the east London makeshift restaurant with a rod of iron, said of Ellison: "She is going to go on and become phenomenally successful.

"She has been a complete surprise, the best cook in the house."

Asked by Deayton to whom he would give a job, he pointed to Ellison and said: "The one sat here in front of me."

Ellison went on: "This was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life."But it is probably one of the best things I have ever done in my life. I have learned so much."

Dreyfus told Deayton he was "delighted" for Ellison.

He said: "In the last three days I was saying, 'She has got to win'. She's a brilliant cook."It would've been unjust if I had won - I'm an appalling cook."

Ramsay, who runs London's only three-starred Michelin restaurant, Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea, paid tribute to the 10 celebrities who took part in the reality show.

Eighties pop star Matt Goss, 35, was voted out earlier in the evening, and described the experience as "an emotional rollercoaster".

Former MP Edwina Currie left the kitchen on Saturday, following comic Al Murray, TV presenter Abi Titmuss, former Coronation Street actress Amanda Barrie, US singer Belinda Carlisle, athlete Dwain Chambers and DJ Tommy Vance.Describing the last two weeks, Ramsay said: "It has been really difficult, but in the second week we turned the corner.

"Edwina was always a pleasure - it is just like cooking next to your mum all day long."

Earlier in the day, Ramsay told the three they were the "crack team", before ordering them to cook lunch for himself and fellow chefs Angela Hartnett from the Connaught and Mark "Sarg" Sergeant, of Claridges.

The trio looked pensive and agonised over "gloopy" mashed potato, but produced a meal using left overs in the kitchen which Ramsay declared was "delicious".He said: "Well done, bloody good."

Hartnett added: "I'm stunned."

Ramsay was in the heat himself yesterday when it was revealed he had received a police caution for gross indecency in a public lavatory.

The chef admitted he was arrested with two other male chefs in March 1993 after the incident at Green Park station on the London Underground, but said it was nothing more than drunken high jinks.